STEAM Academy Junior Acheivement students teach BTA scholars about money management

Students at Benjamin Turner Academy learned about the importance of money management, including the significance of earnings and savings, from STEAM Academy high schoolers through the Junior Achievement program.

Junior Achievement is a national program offered at all three high schools, which gives high school students the opportunity to teach elementary and middle schoolers about financial literacy and entrepreneurship. The mission of Junior Achievement is to prepare and inspire students for their futures.

To read about STEAM students teaching at  Mandela School earlier this year, click here. 

Students in kindergarten through sixth grade at Benjamin Turner Academy received the lesson Tuesday morning, learning valuable information about savings.

Sophomore Escarlet Bravo, with seniors Zachary Cotto and Abdullah Salem started the lesson by explaining to the class what Junior Achievement is, “We’re Junior Achievement, which is basically a group where we go into schools and we teach kids about money and their community and how money works in our community,” Zachary said to the class. 

“We're here to show you guys on a deeper level how money works in our communities and how you use it every day and how you can amplify your use of money in different ways.”

The student teachers then asked the class “What would they do with their money if they had $100 to spend?” Some students responded by saying they would buy new sneakers, with other students saying they would save the money.

This question led into the lesson for the day, the importance of financial competence and understanding the value money has. Students were asked to write on three different colored note cards something they recently spent money on, a job they would like to do and something they would like to save for. 

The class discussed their responses before diving into what income and financial institutions are, to help tie in the main lesson of the importance of saving and earning money. The lesson ended with a game of bingo, to further solidify the importance of saving, earning and spending money.

“The thing I learned is that if you’re able to save money, then you can buy anything,” said Logan Guerra, a sixth grader at BTA. “If you just save it in a bank and it gets interest, you’ll be able to buy anything. My favorite part was the bingo.” 

Through Junior Achievement, students in the Mount Vernon City School District are learning valuable lessons from their peers that’ll help them succeed financially beyond the classroom.